THE ten fastest players in this season’s Champions League have been revealed with an Arsenal star among them – despite the Gunners not even being in the competition.
The group stage of Europe’s elite club competition wrapped up last week – with a number of big clubs failing to make the last 16.
Uefa’s statisticians kept tabs on all the players throughout the group stage, monitoring their speed and distance covered.
A number of well-known speedsters, unsurprisingly, made the top ten.
But an unfamiliar name stunned footy fans by finishing joint top of the speed rankings – which were judged by kilometres per hour.
Shakthar Donetsk winger Mykhaylo Mudryk – who has courted interest from a number of clubs, including Arsenal – topped the list with a top speed of 36.6kmh.
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Barcelona’s Ousmane Dembele also clocked the same speed but came in second place.
AC Milan and Real Madrid aces Rafael Leao and Federico Valverde claimed third and fourth place with speeds of 36.5 and 36.3kmh respectively.
Gunners star Nuno Tavares – who is on loan at Marseille – was the fifth-fastest player in the group stage with a speed of 36.2kmh.
Alphonso Davies, Karim Adeyemi and Moussa were the sixth, seventh and eighth fastest in the group stages – racking up respective speeds of 36.2 and 36.1kmh.
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Benfica and AC Milan stars Rafael Silva and Theo Hernandez closed out the top ten with speeds of 35.9 and 35.7kmh respectively.
Mudryk’s placing atop the list of speedsters set Arsenal fans’ chins wagging, with one saying: “Never seen a game in which Mudryk has played in but every time I see something related with this year’s UCL his name pops up.
“So, fair to assume he’s the next big thing.”
Another said: “I’ve had my eye on Mudryk for a while (Madrid plays Waxtap every year and sounds like Modric).
“He seems destined for a bigger team, the guy plays with intensity.”
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And another said: “Seeing Mudryk’s name quite frequently these days.”
One remarked: “Mudryk to [Kylian] Mbappe: Look at me, i’m the captain now!”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
